Advance party game plan

Day before: Prepare in advance as much as possible. I cook the soup, cool and refrigerate it and prepare croutons for the garnish. I blanch (cook in boiling water) the green beans, cool and refrigerate them. If I am serving ice cream with the dessert, I use an ice cream scoop to form balls, and then seal them in a single layer in a plastic container and store in the freezer. I set the table and stack soup bowls and a ladle in a convenient place in the kitchen.

Day of: The morning of the party I bake the apple dessert and brown (but not fully cook) the orzo (and leave it in the saucepan on the stove). I soak the prunes in wine and chop the vegetables for the pork (placing them next to the stove along with a tablespoon of brandy in a separate container placed away from the heat). I also set an instant-read thermometer next to the ingredients and set the fat separating device in the sink. I pull out the food processor so it is ready to do its work along with my big enamel-coated casserole dish.

An hour before: I start the pork preparation about 35 minutes before my guests arrive, that way it has been in the oven about 20 minutes before they arrive. It will take a total of 45-60 minutes in the oven. Next I cook the orzo and leave it on the stove. For the green beans, I put a skillet on the stove with oil in it, and a little container holding the chopped pistachios. I put the pot filled with soup on the stove. Voila!

As summer turns into autumn, I crave the bounty of a new season. Pomegranates, pears and persimmons. Apples and winter squash. Citrus fruit.

I pine for heartier fare, such as bubbling stews and warm fruit pies. Oh-so-luscious roasts of pork, unacceptably rich in July, seem irresistible in October.

For me, fall is dinner-party paradise, a short breath of serenity tucked between summer mayhem and winter-holiday havoc. Others must have similar yearnings. More than a decade ago, I wrote a story themed to a fall company dinner. Readers still tell me how much they enjoyed those recipes. So I decided to put together an autumn dinner menu to showcase some of my favorite dishes, concoctions that pair with a pork dish from Marie-Catherine, my late Parisian aunt-by-marriage.

Her pork with prunes autumn entree tasted three-star succulent but required a lot less work to prepare. A lean loin of pork braises in wine and aromatic vegetables, and then a sauce is made with reduced pan juices, wine-soaked prunes and a good dollop of crème fraîche (a tangy, thickened cream) or whipping cream.

To start the meal, a vegetable-loaded pureed soup is scrumptious. In my home we fondly refer to it as “garbazh” soup (gar-bazh sounds like garage with a B in the middle). Pronounced in a haughty French accent, somehow the negative connotation of garbage never enters our minds.

Instead, the image of luscious, smooth soup, rich in vegetables, pops into our menu memories. This soup is so appreciated that it's as likely to show up at a birthday dinner party as a weeknight supper.

Made with a hodgepodge of on-hand vegetables from remnants in the refrigerator vegetable drawer, the recipe can vary greatly. Two or three mild vegetables can be substituted at will. Green beans, zucchini, a small amount of green pepper, celery, celeriac (celery root) or leeks are good choices. Strongly flavored vegetables – such as Brussels sprouts, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips and asparagus – can be used, but they are so powerful that their flavor will override (or at least fight with) the other vegetable flavors in the soup.

When entertaining, I appreciate pureed soups because they can be prepared up to two days in advance (without the egg enrichment) and refrigerated well-sealed. Then it is a simple matter of reheating and serving. Easy.

Much of the work for the side dishes can be done in advance, too. The pistachio-spiked green beans can be blanched a day or two in advance and stored in the refrigerator. The orzo for the pilaf can be browned several hours before adding the liquid to complete the cooking process.

And the Apple Lady's Apple Cake is a winner. Patricia Wells taught me how to make it in a cooking class years ago. She is the much-respected restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune and author of several best-selling books (such as “The Food Lover's Guide to Paris,” Workman, $16.95).

A Wisconsin native, she and her husband, Walter, have lived in Paris for more than 20 years. She snagged the recipe from her favorite apple vendor at the farmers market along the avenue de Saxe in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The cake is like a crustless pie, with only enough batter to hold the apple wedges together. It can be prepared several hours in advance of serving. Happy autumn, enjoy the eats.

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